MLB Best Bets Today April 8:
Everybody is in action on Tuesday across Major League Baseball, as all 30 teams take the field and many do so in cold weather, if the games are even played. It will not be fun to be a hitter or a defender, and pitchers may have some problems gripping cold baseballs. Chilly temps in Detroit, Queens, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Boston, and Chicago are definitely a big story today.
Totals are definitely reflecting the cooler conditions, as we have several totals ranging from 6.5 to 7.5 for the April 8 card. One other note is that going forward, even if there is a pitching change, I will grade plays as “Action”. You have to dig now to find listed pitchers and some books no longer even offer them in the age of openers. I won’t go back and change the Guardians result on Opening Day, but moving forward, picks will be Action, so hopefully we don’t run into too many of those.
Top MLB Resources:
This article will run Monday-Saturday and I’ll write up a standalone preview for Sunday Night Baseball on Sundays. This year, we’ll also have MLB best bets from Greg Peterson posted with overnight lines.
My tracking sheet is here. For transparency sake, I also have tracking for my three MLB seasons at VSiN (2024, 2023, 2022). This year, I intend to work in more props, derivatives, and maybe even some parlay bets to have a more diversified MLB portfolio and attack some different markets. What worked for me in the past has not worked as well the last two years, so I’m looking to make some changes and that includes my bet distribution by type and market.
Odds are from DraftKings Sportsbook because they are widely available to readers and because of some of our betting tools. I highly, highly, highly encourage you to shop around for the best lines. Sometimes they will be at DK. Oftentimes, they will not. Do what you can to shop around and get as much bang for your buck as possible.
Feel free to use my opinions and thoughts, as well as our suite of MLB Betting Tools, including the DraftKings and Circa Betting Splits, Steve Makinen’s Daily Ratings, Greg Peterson’s Daily Lines, the 1st 5 Innings Analyzer, and Umpire Stats.
Here are the MLB best bets today for April 8:
St. Louis Cardinals at Pittsburgh Pirates (-135, 6.5)
6:40 p.m. ET
One of those cold games will be at PNC Park in Pittsburgh, where temps will be around 38 degrees with a little bit of a breeze around first pitch. It will get cooler and the helping breeze will die down a bit as the night goes along. Wind conditions aren’t terribly impactful at PNC Park because the park is built down into the ground a little.
Sonny Gray and Paul Skenes are the two hurlers in this one. We know Skenes is elite and dominant, but let’s look more at Gray and his early-season returns. He’s struck out 15 and only walked two over his 11 innings of work. Gray had some velocity concerns in Spring Training, but his velo was back up to his 2024 levels in his last start against the Angels. He threw six good innings, but Oliver Marmol tried to push him into the seventh, where he loaded the bases and then gave up a Logan O’Hoppe grand slam. Prior to that, his lone blemish was a solo homer and he struck out nine over six innings.
So, while Gray has a 5.73 ERA, he has a 4.11 xERA and a 3.32 xFIP, as he’s given up three homers so far while being an extreme fly ball guy. The Pirates don’t have much in the way of power potential and it will be cold, so the ball shouldn’t travel well tonight. I prefer to look at Gray’s 19.4% SwStr% and 68.9% F-Strike%. He’s generating lots of chases outside the zone with a 37.3% Chase Rate. The Pirates haven’t chased a lot, but they also have the lowest Swing% in baseball. Gray is inducing a lot of swings.
Skenes is more or less always dominant, as he has 13 strikeouts in 12.1 innings of work. He has only allowed a 20.7% Hard Hit% and one Barrel in his two starts thus far. Unlike Gray with his extreme fly ball stats, Skenes has a 62.1% GB% over his two starts. Over a strikeout per inning paired with a high GB% is something really, really special.
The worry here for me is holding my breath when these two bullpens come into the game, but I don’t want to lay -145 on Under 3.5 for the 1st 5. Thanks to their pitch efficiency, coupled with a cold, miserable night to hit, Gray and Skenes should both be able to work deep into the game and limit the exposure of each relief corps.
Pick: Cardinals/Pirates Under 6.5 (-102)
Minnesota Twins at Kansas City Royals (-120, 7.5)
7:40 p.m ET
We’ve got a terrific pitching matchup in Kansas City, as the Twins send Pablo Lopez to the hill and the Royals counter with their ace, Cole Ragans. Ragans looks spectacular through two starts. His velo is there, he’s generating all kinds of swings and misses, and he has induced a ton of weak contact.
Lopez doesn’t have the same swing-and-miss early in the season, but he has had some pretty solid returns as he owns a 2.25 ERA. But, he does have a 3.97 xERA and a 4.15 FIP in his two starts thus far, as he’s given up a couple of homers and only has the eight strikeouts out of 48 batters. Lopez is throwing his four-seam fastball a lot more early in the season and that typically isn’t a big pitch for generating Whiffs. It had a 25.9% Whiff% last season, but has an 11.4% Whiff% through two starts so far.
He’s faced nearly as many righties as lefties, but we’ve still seen decreased usage of his sweeper and more usage of his changeup. I’m curious to see how that plays going forward and if that is a change that the Twins made or if it’s just been situational. We did see a noteworthy K% decrease from Lopez in the second half last season, as he went from a 27.9% K% in the first half to a 22.8% K% in the second half. He was still effective and saw ERA regression thanks to a big uptick in LOB%, but it seems like the Twins may be trying to undercut the usage of his secondaries to throw more fastballs for some reason.
As a result, I think the Royals get more run-scoring chances in this game. Ragans struck out 10 over five innings last time out against the Brewers and definitely has the greater strikeout upside. The Twins only have 76 PA against lefties thus far, so you don’t want to read too much into it, but they have a .071/.145/.129 slash with a -14 wRC+ and a 32.9% K%. I don’t think those numbers improve much today.
And, frankly, the vibes just seem better around KC. The Twins look awful to start the season. I backed them yesterday and they did nothing of consequence against Michael Lorenzen. They had a huge bullpen melt on Sunday and then Rocco Baldelli got ejected yesterday. It’s been an atrocious start to the season and I don’t think facing a guy like Ragans helps. Also, the Royals may have simply passed the Twins by with some of their recent hires, as it feels like Minnesota has lost an edge over the last few years.
Pick: Royals -120
Baltimore Orioles (-112, 9.5) at Arizona Diamondbacks
9:40 p.m. ET
A couple of wily, veteran right-handers come together here between Baltimore and Arizona. It will be Charlie Morton for the Orioles and Merrill Kelly for the Diamondbacks. Both guys have had a bit of a rocky start to the season, as Morton owns a 9.72 ERA with a 5.86 xERA, 4.15 FIP, and a 2.81 xFIP. Morton is not inducing ground balls like he usually does and has a .478 BABIP against with a couple homers allowed.
But, what Morton also still has is the ability to miss bats. He’s got 13 strikeouts in his 8.1 innings in starts against the Blue Jays and Red Sox. He actually struck out 10 over five innings last time out, yet allowed five runs on six hits and two homers. It was a tremendously weird stat line, but the curveball is still working and he’s got good velocity. I imagine pitching inside where his 41-year-old body could get a little looser should help.
Kelly owns a 10.00 ERA with an 11.03 xERA, a 9.07 FIP, and a 7.86 xFIP after getting shredded by the Yankees last time out. Kelly only has three strikeouts against seven walks in his nine innings of work. He gave up nine runs over 3.2 innings to New York last time out, a start after he allowed one run on three hits to the Cubs, pitching around four walks.
I do feel like there’s more upside to Morton, who is still missing bats. Kelly is nibbling more, possibly feeling like the quality of his stuff has declined. Also, Kelly’s primary pitch last season was the cutter with 25.2% usage and he’s only thrown eight of them so far, relying more heavily on his changeup and curveball. He’s not generating Whiffs with his primary pitches, so that’s a big concern.
Given that I also prefer the Orioles bullpen in most of their head-to-head matchups, including this one against Arizona, I’ll take the short favorite price on Baltimore here.
Pick: Orioles -112
